The Irish Princess

This is my first review for 2022! I know I’m a little late in writing this but it took me a week or two to finish reading, “The Irish Princess,” by Elizabeth Chadwick who also wrote the trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine. King Diarmit of Lennister was disappointed when his wife Mor, bore a daughter instead of another son. Once the King held his baby daughter in his arms his heart softened and she is named Aoife. When Aoife is fourteen her country is attacked and she and her family are exiled. Diarmit arranges Aoife to marry Richard De Clare if Richard helps him take back his home. Aoife may be a marriage prize but she proves herself to be a woman with her own mind and isn’t a doormat. It was interesting because it’s about a princess I have never heard of before. I did feel something was missing from it. What I’m not for sure.

Pros

I enjoy that the setting is in Ireland. I love the time period. I also enjoyed that we saw King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine again and Henry’s mother Maud for a little bit despite the story not being about them obviously. I like Aoife she’s a woman with a fiery spirit and a strong woman for her time while still doing her duty. Although Richard and Aoife were married for only six years, with Richard dying to blood poisoning I thought it was interesting that Aoife never remarried. She was never forced to remarry and this was during a time where women were marriage prizes. Aoife had to children with Richard, Isabelle De Clare who would marry the knight William Marshal and Gilbert De Clare.

Cons

I felt at times there were periods throughout the book where it went on and on. You could skip chapters and miss nothing.  Either the book was missing something or the book needed to be shorter. I would have liked to read about Aoife in her later years raising her children and interacting with Isabelle’s husband William Marshal.

Overall

Overall it was a good book. Was it something I would rave about? Not really. Is the book the worst one I read? Nope. It was just a bit bland. I can’t wait to read more from Elizabeth Chadwick in the future though. She is working on a new project right now.